There are hundreds, if not thousands, of organizations worldwide that focus on shark conservation and yet one more is working endlessly to aid in this important cause.
Eric Knox, founder and Executive Director of SharkBytes, Inc., was fascinated with sharks before he could even read. His fascination grew into love and respect and then a deep rooted passion to improve shark-human relations and raise awareness of how important these majestic creatures are to our world environment. How is he accomplishing this you might ask?
Eric founded SharkBytes, Inc. as a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve shark and human relations by educating the public regarding shark related incidents and to increase awareness of the risks of the depopulation of sharks.
One of the ways SharkBytes attempts to accomplish this is with a free research-based app. The idea to create an app came to Eric when he became frustrated with app stores due to how few educational apps were available in the field of sharks. Every shark app he found was either a game or wallpaper. Seeing this lack of resources, he got to work creating a well-rounded, research-based app that encompassed what he felt was needed to educate the public on sharks.
The app has several features such as Shark Types and Safety Tips but what users are most taken with is the Shark Activity and Map features. Shark Activity includes a Search Your Beach feature which gives users the ability to look up recent shark activity and incident history at every beach and water destination in the world. The history allows users to see information on any shark incident that has ever occurred. The app’s database includes worldwide data that goes back over 100 years which amounts to roughly 6,000 incidents. The app also has a user based interactive map where users can see and report all current and past shark sightings in a given area.
Some may think that all this information would scare people from entering the water; but what SharkBytes has found is that users actually feel safer after seeing the real data. The main reason for this change is that the data often reveals how few incidents actually occur at each beach. Also, being able to view the details of a shark incident tends to provide peace of mind to beachgoers because with most shark encounters injuries tend to be minor.
Eric is a family man and uses the app to help him make an informed decision on which beach to visit while vacationing with his family based on the shark activity history. Even with the understanding that a person is more likely to get struck by lightning than get bitten by a shark, why not go where the chances of an encounter are even less if you can.
Another exciting feature of the app is the alerts. Anyone with a smartphone is able to receive alerts through a push notification whenever a new shark incident takes place. These alerts enable users have up to date information on each incident without the hype; simply when, where, injuries and status of beach closures. Because it is SharkBytes’s mission to improve shark-human relations, the organization has chosen to avoid the phrase “shark attack” in the reports and instead refers to the events as incidents or encounters. While many media organizations tend to sensationalize these events, SharkBytes reports only the facts surrounding shark encounters.
The second part of SharkBytes mission is to educate the public on the depopulation of sharks in our oceans. The tool that helps with this is a monthly Save Sharks Blog. Articles are posted monthly that focus on issues which center around shark conservation and world environment since they are so closely related. often off. Blog posts often different ways to get involved in efforts to help save sharks.
Late spring and during the summer months you will find Eric, sometimes alone, sometimes with his small team, traveling to various events, such as the Venice Shark Tooth Festival and Shark-Con in Tampa to name a few, with the sole purpose of raising shark awareness and pursuing his passion to help save sharks. Check out this free app or the website at www.sharkbytesapp.com for more in depth information about this non-profit and its mission.